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Thomas the Rhymer
Thomas the Rhymer also called Thomas of Erceldoune or Thomas Learmonth (?1220 - 1298?); ), was a legendary 13th-century Scottish poet and reputed prophet. Life Overview Thomas Ercildoun, or "Thomas The Rhymer", was a minstrel to whom is ascribed Sir Tristrem, a rhyme or story for recitation. He had a reputation for prophecy, and is reported to have foretold the death of Alexander III., and various other events.John William Cousin, "Ercildoun, Thomas, or "Thomas The Rhymer"," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 130. Web, Jan. 10, 2018. Rhymer from Earlston (then called "Erceldoune"), ; and known by the sobriquets Thomas the Rhymer or True Thomas.He is also known as Thomas Rhymer, Thomas Rymour, Thomas Rymer, Thomas de Erceldoune, Thomas Rymour de Erceldoune In literature he appears as the protagonist in the tale about Thomas the Rhymer, who was carried off by the "Queen of Elfland" and returned having gained the gift of prophecy, as well as the inability to tell a lie. The tale survives in a medieval verse romance in five manuscripts, as well as in the popular ballad "Thomas the Rhymer" (Child Ballad number 37).Child Ballad #37. "Thomas the Rymer", The original romance ca. 1400 was probably condensed into ballad form ca. 1700, though there are dissenting views on this. Sir Walter Scott expanded the ballad into 3 parts, adding a sequel which incorporated the prophecies ascribed to Thomas, and an epilogue where Thomas is summoned back to Elfland after the appearance of a sign, in the form of the milk-white hart and . Numerous prose retellings of the tale of Thomas the Rhymer have been undertaken, and included in fairy tale or folk-tale anthologies; these often incorporate the return to Fairyland episode that Scott reported to have learned from local legend. Historical figure Thomas, seer and poet, occupies much the same position in Scottish popular lore as Merlin does in that of England, but with some historical foundation. His actual existence and approximate dates can be fixed by contemporary documents.Tedder, 385. The name of "Thomas Rimor de Ercildun," with 4 others, is appended as witness to a deed whereby Petrus de Haga de Bemersyde agreed to pay half a stone of wax annually to the abbot and convent of Melrose for the chapel of St. Cuthbert at Old Melrose (Liber de Melros, Bannatyne Club, i. 298). The document is undated, but the Petrus de Haga must be identified with the person of that name who lived about 1220 (ib. pp. 94-96), as 2 of the 4 witnesses mentioned above were Oliver, abbot of Dryburgh (c 1250-1268), and Hugh de Peresby, viscount of Roxburgh, alive in 1281. In the chartulary of the Trinity House of Soltra, preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, is a deed conveying to that house all the lands held by inheritance in Erceldoune by ‘Thomas de Ercildoun filius et heres Thome Rymour de Ercildoun.’ The date has been usually quoted 1299, but J.A.H. Murray gives it accurately for the first time as 2 November 1294 (Thomas of Erceldoune, 1875, Introduction x–xi). "The superiority of the property called Rhymer's Lands, now owned by Mr. Charles Wilson, Earlstoun, still belongs to the Trinity College Church in Edinburgh," says Mr. James Tait (‘Earlstoun,’ in Proc. of Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, 1866, v. 263). The area of the lands has been the same, 9-1/2 acres, for the last 300 years. They seem to have been held by Thomas and his son, not from the crown but from the Earls of Dunbar. An ancient water-mill, known as ‘Rhymer's Mill,’ was situated on the property. Robert Manning of Brunne (in English Chronicle, written c 1338, ll. 93–4) says: :I see in song, in sedgeyng tale :Of Erceldun and of Kendale. Sir Thomas Grey (circa 1355, in Scalacronica), Barbour (circa 1375, in The Bruce, bk. ii. v. 86), Androw of Wyntoun (c. 1424, in Orygynale, bk. viii. c. 31), Walter Bower (d. 1449), and Mair also speak of Thomas of Erceldoune. Harry the Blind Minstrel calls him "Thomas Rimour." Hector Boece is the first who uses the title "Thomas Leirmont" (Scotorum Historia, Paris, 1575, lib. xiii. 291). Alexander Nisbet, following Boece, extends the title to Thomas Learmont of Earlstoun in the Merss. "Rymour was a Berwickshire name in those days, one John Rymour, a freeholder, having done homage to Edward I in 1296" (Tait, ut supra, p. 264). Robert Learmont, the last of a family of that patronymic claiming descent from Thomas of Erceldoune, died unmarried about 1840; Russian poet Michael Lermontoff (1814–41) believed he had an ancestor in the Rhymer. Erceldoune or Erceldoun, also written Ercheldun, Ersylton, and Ersseldoune, is the modern Earlstoun or Earlston, a village in Berwickshire about 30 miles from Berwick, situated on the Leader, a northern tributary of the Tweed. The name of Erceldoune was not altered into Earlstoun but supplanted by it. It was a place of considerable importance in the 12th and 13nth centuries, and is connected with the Lindesey family and the Earls of March. Cospatrick, earl of March, took the surname of Erceldoune, and the castle at the east end of the village, said to have been owned by that family, was probably the place where David I signed the foundation charter of Melrose Abbey ‘apud Ercheldon’ in June 1136. Part of ‘Rhymour's Tour,’ which tradition assigns to Thomas, still exists at the west end of the village. A stone in the church wall in Earlstoun bears the inscription Auld Rhymer's race Lies in this place. Tradition says that this stone, which was defaced in 1782, was transferred from the old church. The reputation of Thomas as a prophet is connected with the date of 1285 and the death of Alexander III predicted in that year to Patrick, 8th earl of Dunbar. It is Walter Bower (d. 1449), the continuator of Fordun's ‘Scotichronicon,’ who first mentions that Thomas, when visiting the castle of Dunbar, and asked by the Earl of March what another day was to bring forth, replied: ‘Heu diei crastinæ! diei calamitatis et miseriæ! qua ante horam explicite duodecimam audietur tam vehemens ventus in Scotia, quod a magnis retroactis temporibus consimilis minime inveniebatur’ (lib. x. c. 43). The intelligence of the king's death was duly received before noon the next day. The story is repeated by Mair and Hector Boece. Sir Walter Scott prosaically reduces it to a false weather forecast: "Thomas presaged to the Earl of March that the next day would be windy; the weather proved calm; but news arrived of the death of Alexander III, which gave an allegorical turn to the prediction, and saved the credit of the prophet. It is worthy of notice that some of the rhymes vulgarly ascribed to Thomas of Erceldoune are founded apparently on meteorological observation. And doubtless before the invention of barometers a weather-wise prophet might be an important personage" (‘Sir Tristrem,’ in Works, v. 12).Tedder, 386. The incident occurred in 1285, and Harry the Minstrel associates Thomas with a critical passage in the life of Wallace in 1296 or 1297, when seized by English soldiers and left for dead at Ayr. :Thomas Rimour in to the faile was than. As the son of Thomas had already in 1294 devised the paternal estate, it seems natural to suppose that Thomas was dead 3 years later, but J.A.H. Murray inclines to the theory that he was still alive in retirement at the Faile or Feale, a Cluniac priory near Ayr (Introduction, p. xvi). Legend Prophecies The reputed sayings of Thomas were proverbial soon after his death. Barbour (c. 1375) refers to a prophecy concerning Robert I. After Bruce had slain the Red Cumyn at Dumfries in 1306 the Bishop of St. Andrews is introduced (Bruce, bk. ii. v. 85–7) as saying: :sekerly :I hop Thomas prophecy >Off hersildoune sall weryfyd be. Androw of Wyntoun affirms that "qwhylum spak Thomas" of the battle of Kilblane fought by Sir Andrew Moray against the Baliol faction in 1335 (Orygynale, bk. viii. c. 31). Sir Thomas Grey, constable of Norham, in his Norman-French ‘Scalacronica,’ written during his captivity at Edinburgh Castle in 1355, alludes to the predictions of Merlin, which, like those of ‘William Banastre ou de Thomas de Erceldoun … furount ditz en figure.’ But there is yet earlier evidence of the popular belief in his prophetic gifts. Among the Harleian MSS. (No. 2253, l. 127) in the British Museum we find a prediction written before 1320, with the superscription, "La countesse de Donbar demanda a Thomas de Essedoune quant la guere descoce prendreit fyn." The answers to this question are given in 17 brief paragraphs in a southern (or south midland) dialect, and probably by an English author. They describe the various improbabilities which are to take place before the war shall come to an end within 21 years. From one vaticination, "when bambourne Bannockburn is donged Wyth dedemen," it is highly probable that the piece was composed on the eve of the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and the forgery circulated under the name of the national seer in order to damp the courage of the Scots and to give good omen to the English. 21 years back was 1293, when Thomas may have been alive. The lines were first printed by Pinkerton (Ancient Scottish Poems, 1786, i. lxxviii), who is followed by W. Scott (Border Minstrelsy, iv. 130) in assuming the Countess of Dunbar to be the famous Black Agnes, the defender of Dunbar Castle in 1337; but this is not possible from the age of the Harleian MS., and the countess is no doubt meant as the wife of the earl to whom Thomas predicted the death of Alexander III (Murray, Introduction, p. xix). "During the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries," says Chambers, "to fabricate a prophecy in the name of Thomas the Rhymer appears to have been found a good stroke of policy on many occasions" (Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 1870, p. 212). Collections were made of these forebodings by various persons, generally in alliterative verse. The earliest printed edition is The whole Prophesie of Scotland, England, and some part of France and Denmark, prophesied bee mervellous Merling, Beid, Bertlington, Thomas Rymour, Waldhaue, Eltraine, Banester, and Sibbilla, all according in one, R. Waldegrave, 1603, sm. 8vo. This was collated with an edition of 1615 and reproduced by the Bannatyne Club (1833). Numerous reprints in chapbook form have appeared down to quite recent times. Certain predictions of Thomas were printed by Rev. J.R. Lumby from a manuscript of the early part of the 15th century (Bernardus de Cura Rei Fam., with some Early Scottish Prophecies, Early English Text Society, 1870). At the time of the accession of James VI to the English throne the reputation of Thomas as a successful prophet was renewed. The Earl of Stirling and Drummond of Hawthornden, in dedicating to the king their respective works, ‘Monarchicke Tragedies’ and ‘Forth Feasting,’ refer to the ‘propheticke rimes’ of Thomas foreshadowing the event. Archbishop Spottiswoode speaks of Thomas ‘having foretold, so many ages before, the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland in the ninth degree of the Bruce's blood’ (History of the Church of Scotland, Spottiswoode Soc. 1851, i. 93). The sayings were consulted even so late as during the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745. The name of Thomas of Erceldoune was reverenced in England as well as in Scotland. He is always coupled in popular lore with Merlin and other English soothsayers, and it is remarkable that all the texts of his romances and predictions are preserved in English transcripts. More or less plausible explanations of his sayings are still applied to modern events. *''"On the morrow, afore noon, shall blow the greatest wind that ever was heard before in Scotland."This particular rendition from Latin into English can be found in, e.g.: This prophecy predicted the death of Alexander_III_of_Scotland| in 1286. Thomas gave this prediction to the Earl of Dunbar, but when there was no change in weather patterns discernible at the ninth hour, the Earl sent for the prophet to reprove. Thomas replied the appointed hour has not come, and anon, the news came reporting of the king's death. The earliest notice of this prophecy occurs in Bower's 15th-century ''Scotichronicon, written in Latin. Bower, Scotichronicon Book X, Ch. 43: "..qua ante horam explicite duodecimam audietur tam vehemens ventus in Scotia, quod a magnis retroactis temporibus consimilis minime inveniebatur." (footnoted in ) An early English vernacular source is John Bellenden's 16th century Croniklis of Scotland, a translation of Hector Boece. *''"Who shal rule the ile of Bretaine / From the North to the South sey?"'' :"A French wife shal beare the Son, / Shall rule all Bretaine to the sey, :that of the Bruces blood shall come / As neere as the nint degree." ::The lines given are structured in the form of one man's questions, answered by another, who goes on to identify himself: "In Erlingstoun, I dwelle at hame/Thomas Rymour men calles me." Printed in the aforementioned chapbook The Whole Prophecie of 1603, published upon the death of Elizabeth I, the prophecy purports to have presaged Scottish rule of all of Britain (by James I). This "became in the sequel by far the most famous of all the prophecies," but it has been argued that this is a rehash of an earlier prophecy that was originally meant for John Stewart, Duke of Albany (d. 1536) , citing Lord Hailes, Remarks on the History of Scotland (1773), Chapter III, pp.89– Words not substantially different are also given in the same printed book, under the preceding section for the prophecy of John of Bridlington,"How euer it happen for to fall, / The Lyon shal be Lord of all./The French wife shal beare the sonne, /Shal welde al Bretane to the sea, And from the Bruce's blood shall come. /As near as the ninth degree." ( ) and the additional date clue there "1513 & thrise three there after" facilitating the identification "Duke's son" in question as Duke of Albany, although Murray noted that the Duke's "performance of .. doubty deeds" was something he "utterly failed to do". Walter Scott was familiar with rhymes purported to be the Rhymer's prophecies in the local popular tradition, and published several of them. "sundry rhymes, passing for his prophetic effusions, are still current among the vulgar" Later Robert Chambers printed additional collected rhyme prophecies ascribed to Thomas, in Popular Rhymes (1826). :"At Eildon Tree, if yon shall be, :a brig ower Tweed yon there may see." ::Scott identifies the tree as that on Eildon Hill in Melrose, some five miles away from today's Earlston. Three bridges built across the river were visible from that vantage point in Scott's day. *''"This Thorn-Tree, as lang as it stands,'' :Earlstoun sall possess a' her lands." ::or "As long as the Thorn Tree stands / Ercildourne shall keep its lands". This was first of several prophecies attributed to the Rhymer collected by Chambers, who identified the tree in question as the one that fell in the storm in either 1814 or 1821, presumably on the about the last acre that was left that belonged to the town of Earlstoun. The prophecy was lent additional weight at the time, because as it so happened, the merchants of the town had fallen under bankruptcy by a series of "unfortunate circumstances". According to one account, "Rhymer's thorn" was a huge tree growing in the garden of the Black Bull Inn, and its proprietor named Thin, had its roots cut all around, leaving it vulnerable to the storm that same year. . Murray received detailed report on the tree from Mr James Wood, Galashiels. *''"When the Yowes o' Gowrie come to land, '' :The Day o' Judgment's near at hand" ::The "Ewes of Gowrie" are two boulders near Invergowrie protruding from the Firth of Tay, said to approach the land at the rate of an inch a year. This couplet was also published by Chambers, though filed under a different locality (Perthshire), and he ventured to guess that the ancient prophecy was "perhaps by Thomas the Rhymer." Barbara Ker Wilson's retold version has altered the rhyme, including the name of the rocks thus: "When the Cows o' Gowrie come to land / The Judgement Day is near at hand." *''"York was, London is, and Edinbruch 'ill be,'' :the biggest and the bonniest o' a' the three" Modernized as: "York was, London is, and Edinburgh shall be / The biggest and bonniest o' the three" ::Collected from a 72-year-old man resident in Edinburgh. *''"Fyvie, Fyvie thou'se never thrive,'' :lang's there's in thee stanes three : :There's ane intill the highest tower, :There's ane intill the ladye's bower, :There's ane aneath the water-yett, '' :''And thir three stanes ye'se never get." Modern variant "Fyvie, Fyvie thou'll never thrive / As long as there's in thee stones three;/There's one in the oldest tower,/There's one in the lady's bower/There's one in the water-gate,/And these three stones you'll never get." in: ::Tradition in Aberdeenshire said that Fyvie Castle stood seven years awaiting arrival of "True Tammas," as the Rhymer was called in the local dialect. The Rhymer arrived carrying a storm that brewed all around him, though perfectly calm around his person, and pronounced the above curse. Two of the stones were found, but the third stone of the water-gate eluded discovery. And since 1885 no eldest son has lived to succeed his father. *''"Betide, betide, whate'er betide,'' :Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside. ::This prophesized the ancient family of the Haigs of Bemerside will survive for perpetuity. Chambers, in a later editions his Popular Rhymes (1867) prematurely reported that "the prophecy has come to a sad end, for the Haigs of Bemerside have died out." In fact, Field Marshal Douglas Haig hails from this family, and was created earl in 1919, currently succeeded by the 3rd Ear (b. 1961). Writing ''Tristem'' To Thomas of Erceldoune is attributed a poem on the Tristrem story, belonging to the Arthurian cycle of romance, which has reached us in a single copy, the Auchinleck MS. in the Advocates' Library, transcribed by a southern hand about 1450 from a northern text written probably between 1260 and 1300. It commences with a reference to Thomas, and there are other allusions (ll. 397, 408, 2787). Robert Manning of Brunne connects the romance with the name of Thomas. Scott and Irving considered the poem the undoubted work of Thomas, but Warton, Wright, Halliwell, G. Paris, Murray, and Kölbing agree in thinking that when the unknown translator from the French original found a Thomas mentioned he himself inserted the designation of Erceldoune. The latest editor, Mr. McNeill, contends that "the reasonable probability is that Robert Mannyng of Brunne was right when he ascribed the poem to Thomas of Erceldoune" (Sir Tristrem, p. xliv). It was printed for the first time by Sir W. Scott, Sir Tristrem, a metrical romance of the 13th century, by Thomas of Erceldoune, called the Rhymer, London, 1804, large 8vo. A 2nd edition appeared in 1806, a 3rd in 1811, again in 1819, and in the collective editions of the poetical works of Scott. The first issue of Scott's text swarms with errors; some are corrected in the later editions, which are still very inaccurate according to Kölbing. Scott's 1806 text with a German glossary is reprinted in Gottfried's von Strassburg Werke, herausg. durch H. von der Hagen, Breslau, 1823. A considerable portion of the text from Scott's Poetical Works, v. 1833, is reproduced with introduction and notes by E. Mätzner (Altenglische Sprachproben, i. 231–242). The first critical text is that of E. Kölbing (Die nordische und die englische Version der Tristansage, Heilbronn, 1882, vol. ii.), with an elaborate introduction and complete glossary. The text has been again thoroughly edited by G.P. McNeill (Scottish Text Society 1886), with introduction, notes, and glossary. The numerous local traditions about ‘True Thomas’ are recorded by Scott (Minstrelsy, vol. iv.), in the Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, by R. Chambers (Popular Rhymes, 1870), and Murray (Introduction). Huntly Bank and the adjoining ravine, the Rhymer's Glen, were ultimately included in the domain of Abbotsford.Tedder, 388. Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer The earliest composition attributed to him in his double character of seer and poet, the romance of Thomas and the ‘"adye gaye," which is, of course, a work long posterior to his date, may be placed shortly after 1400. He is represented as meeting the lady on Huntly Banks by Eildon Tree, as making love to her, and being carried to her country, which is not in heaven, paradise, hell, purgatory, or "on middel-erthe," but "another cuntre." There he lives for 3 years or more. The time comes when the customary tribute to hell has to be paid, and, so that he should not be chosen by the fiend, the elf-queen conducts him back to earth. She gives him the power of prophecy as a token, and in compliance with repeated wishes furnishes him with a specimen of her own art in a prospective view of the wars between England and Scotland from the time of Bruce to the death of Robert III in 1406. The poem is in 3 fyttes, and has come down to us in 4 complete copies. The earliest is the Thornton MS. at Cambridge, written 1430–40. All the copies are in English, and speak of an older story, Scottish, possibly the actual work of Thomas. The opinion of Professor Child is that the original story ‘was undoubtedly a romance which narrated the adventure of Thomas with the elf-queen simply, without specification of his prophecies. In all probability it concluded, in accordance with the ordinary popular tradition, with Thomas's return to fairyland after a certain time passed in this world. For the history of Thomas and the elf-queen is but another version of what is related of Ogier le Danois and Morgan the Fay’ (Popular Ballads, pt. ii. 1884, 319). J.A.H. Murray considers that as a whole the prophecies flow naturally from the tale, and have not been tacked on by a subsequent writer. "The poem in its present form bears evidence of being later than 1401, the date of the invasion of Scotland by Henry IV, or at least 1388, the date of the battle of Otterbourne" (Introd. pp. xxvi, xxiv). Brandl is of opinion that the writer was an Englishman. The whole of the events under fytte ii. can be identified, and, with one exception, are arranged in chronological order. Most of the predictions in the third fytte appear to be old legends adapted to later requirements.Tedder, 387. The 1st fytte was printed by Scott as an appendix to the modern traditionary ballad in the Border Minstrelsy, and the whole by Jamieson (Popular Ballads and Songs, Edinburgh, 1806), by Dr. Laing (Select Remains, 1822, new ed. 1885), and by Halliwell-Phillipps (Illustr. of Fairy Mythology, 1845). The most complete edition is that of Dr. J.A.H. Murray, The Romance and Prophecies printed from Five MSS., with illustrations from the Prophetic Literature of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Early English Text Society, 1875), with valuable introduction and notes. A. Brandl also edited the romance in 1880 at Berlin. Professor Child gives several texts of the first fytte with an introduction (Popular Ballads, pt. ii. 1884, 317–29). The ballad around the legend of Thomas has been catalogued Child Ballad #37 "Thomas the Rymer," by Francis James Child (1883). Three versions, A, B, C were originally printed by him. Child later appended two more variants in a subsequent Volume 4 (1892). Some scholars refer to these respectively as Child's D and E versions. Version A is Mrs. Brown's recitation, and C is Walter Scott's rework of it, together classed as the 'Brown group' by C. E. Nelson, while versions B, D, E are all considered by Nelson to be descendants of an archetype that reduced the romance into ballad form ca. 1700, and classed as the 'Greenwood group'. (See §Ballad sources). Child provided a critical synopsis comparing versions A, B, C in his original publication, and considerations for the D, E versions have been augmented below. Synopsis The brief outline of the ballad is that Thomas was lying outdoors on a slope by a tree in the Erceldoune neighborhood, when the queen of Elfland appeared to him riding a horse, and beckoned him to come away, and when he consents, shows him three marvels, the road to Heaven, to Hell, and to her own world. After seven years, Thomas is brought back into the mortal realm, and asking for a token to remember the queen by, is offered the choice of the gift of a harper or a prophet, at which he chooses the latter option. The scene of Thomas's encounter with the elf-queen is "Huntly Bank" and the "Eildon Tree" (versions B, C, and E) or "Farnalie" (version D)Or at least "Farnalie" is given as the spot to where the queen returned Thomas in the final stanza of the D version. All these refer to the area of Eildon Hills, in the vicinity of Earlston: Huntly Bank was a slope on the hill and the tree stood there also, as Scott explained, "Huntley Bank, a place on the descent of the Eildon Hills," while Emily B. Lyle was able to localize "farnalie" there as well.She identified it with farnileie on the Eildon Hills which appears in a document" of 1208 about a land dispute "between the monasteries of Melrose and Kelso". Scott had failed to make this identification. ( ; repr. ) The queen wears a skirt of grass-green silk and a velvet mantle, and is mounted on either a milk-white steed (A), or a dapple-gray horse (B, D, E and R (=romance)). The horse has nine and fifty bells on each tett (Scots English. "lock of matted hair"Tait (sometimes written tate and tett), a lock of matted hair.Mackay's dict (1888); Tate, tait, teat, tatte 2. "Lock, applied to hair" John Jamieson's Dict. (Abridged, 1867)) on its mane in A, nine hung on its mane in E, and three bells on either side of the bridle in R, whereas she had nine bells in her hand in D, offered as a prize for his harping and carping (music and storytelling). Thomas mistakenly addresses her as the "Queen of Heaven" (i.e. the Virgin Mary ), which she corrects by identifying herself as "Queen of fair Elfland" (A, C). In other variants, she reticently identifies herself only as "lady of an unco land" (B), "lady gay" (E) much like the medieval romance. But since the unnamed land of the queen lies in a path leading neither Heaven nor Hell, etc., it can be assumed to be "Fairyland," to put it in more modern lingo. In C and E, the queen dares Thomas to kiss her lips, a corruption of Thomas's embrace in the romance that is lacking in A and B though crucial to a cogent plot since "it is contact with the fairy that gives her the power to carry he paramour off" according to Child. Folorn in the ballads also is the motif of the queen losing her beauty (Loathly lady motif), but Child says the "ballad is no worse, and the romance would have been much better" without it, "impressive" though it may be, since it did not belong in his opinion to the "proper and original story," which he thinks was a blithe tale like the one of Ogier the Dane and Morgan le fay. If he chooses to go, Thomas is warned he will be unable to return for seven years (A, B, D, E). In the romance the queen's warning is "only for a twelvemonth" but overstays more than three (or seven) years. Then she wheels around her milk white steed and lets Thomas ride on the behind (A, C) or she rides the dapple-gray while he ran (B, E). He must wade knee-high through a river (B, C, E), exaggerated as an expanse of blood (perhaps "river of blood"), in A. They reach a "garden green," and Thomas wants to pluck a fruit to slake his hunger but the queen interrupts, admonishing him that he will be accursed or damned (A, B, D, E). The language in B suggests this is "the fruit of the Forbidden Tree;" and variants D, E calls it an apple. The queen provides Thomas food to sate his hunger. The queen now tells Thomas to lay his head to rest on her knee (A, B, C), and shows him three marvels ("ferlies three"), which are the road to Hell, the road to Heaven, and the road to her homeland (named Elfland in A). It is the road beyond the meadow or lawn overgrown with liliesLeven, "a lawn, an open space between woods"; Lily leven "a lawn overspread with lilies or flowers" John Jamieson's Dict. (Abridged, 1867) that leads to Heaven, except in C where the looks deceive and the lily road leads to Hell, while the thorny road leads to Heaven. The queen instructs Thomas not to speak to others in Elfland, and leave her to do all the talking. In the end, he receives as present "a coat of the even cloth, and a pair of shoes of velvet green" (A) or "tongue that can never lie" (B) or both ©. Version E uniquely mentions the Queen's fear that Thomas may be chosen as "teinding unto hell" that is to say the in the form of humans that Elfland is subjected to pay periodically. In the romance, the Queen explains that the collection of the "fee to hell" draws near, and Thomas must be sent back to earth to spare him of the peril. (See § Literary criticism for further literary analysis). Medieval romance The surviving medieval romance is a lengthier account which confirms the content of the ballad.Richard Utz, "Medieval Philology and Nationalism: The British and German Editors of Thomas of Erceldoune,” Florilegium: Journal of the Canadian Society of Medievalists 23.2 (2006), 27–45. The romance is written in the first person,Or, to be more precise: "The narrative begins in the first person, but changes to the third, lapsing once for a moment into the first." but probably is not genuinely Thomas's own work: Murray dated the authorship to "shortly after 1400, or about a hundred years after Thomas's death,", but more recent researchers set the date earlier to the (late) 14th century. The romance does often refer to "the story," and Child has opined if the "older story," if any such thing actually existed, "must be the work of Thomas"."als the story sayes" v.83 or "als the storye tellis" v.123 Like ballad C, Huntley banks is the locale where Thomas made sighting of the elfin lady. The "Eldoune, Eldone tree (Thornton, I, 80, 84)" is also mentioned as in the ballad. Thomas is captivated by her, addressing her as queen of heaven, and she answers she is not so lofty, but hints she is of fairy kind. Thomas makes proposition, but she warns him off saying the slightest sin will undo her beauty. Thomas is undaunted, so she gives the "Mane of Molde" (of Earth, mortal man)" ( I,117) consent to marry her and accompany her. And "seven tymes by hyr he lay," (I, 124), but She transforms into a hideous hag immediately after sleeping with him, and declares he shall not see "Medill-erthe" (I,160) for twelvemonth ("twelmoneth", "xij Mones" vv.152, 159). Like the ballad, the lady points one way towards heaven and another towards hell before they arrive in her dominion. (ca.200–220). The lady is followed by grayhounds and raches (=scent dogs) (249–50). Thomas is entertained with food and dancing, but the lady tells him he must now leave. It seemed threed days to Thomas, but the lady says three years ("thre ȝere") or seven years ("seuen ȝere," depending on manuscript) have passed (284–6), and he is brought back to the Elidon tree. Fytte II is mostly devoted to prophecies. In the opening, Thomas asked for a token to remember the queen by, and she offered him the choice of becoming a harper or a prophet ("harpe or carpe") and rather than the "instrumental" gift, Thomas opts for the "vocal (rather oral) accomplishments." Thomas asks her to abide a bit and tell him some ferlys (marvels). She now starts to tell of future battles at Halidon Hill, Bannockburn, etc., which are easily identifiable historic engagements. (Murray tabulates them in his intro.) The prophecies of battles continue into Fytte III, but the language turns symbolic. Near the end Thomas asks why Black Agnes of Dunbar (III,660) imprisoned him, and she predicts her death. The mention of Black Agnes here is noted as being an anachronism, Thomas of Erceldoune living a whole generation earlier, and presumably was a confusion with an earlier Countess of the March. Manuscript sources The medieval romance survives complete or in fragments in five manuscripts, the earliest of which is the Lincoln codex compiled by Robert Thornton: * Thornton MS. (olim. Lincoln A., 1. 17) - ca. 1430–1440. * MS. Cambridge Ff. 5, 48 - mid 15th century. * MS. Cotton Vitellius E. x., - late 15th century. * MS. Landsowne 762 - ca. 1524–30 * MS. Sloane 2578 MSS. - 1547. Lacks first fitt. All these texts were edited in parallel by J. A. H. Murray in The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune (1875). The Cotton MS. gives an "Incipit prophecia Thome Arseldon" and an "Explicit prophetia thome de Arseldoune, thus this was the version that Walter Scott excerpted as Appendix. The Sloan MS. begins the second fytte with: "Heare begynethe þe ijd fytt I saye / of S''ir'' thom''as'' of Arseldon," and the Thornton MS. gives the "Explicit Thomas Of Erseldowne" after the 700th line. Relationship between romance and ballad The romance dates from late 14th to early 15th century (see below), while the ballad texts available do not antedate ca. 1700-1750 at the earliest. "the earliest version (A) can be traced at furthest only into the first half of the last century. Child's comment in volume 1 did not include the Greenwood text he appendixed in Vol. IV, but Nelson has assigned the same 1700–1750 period ("early to mid-eighteenth-century text") for the Greenwood text. Cooper prefers to push it back to a "text whose origins can be traced back to before 1700"}} The preponderance of opinion seems to be that the romance spawned the ballads (as we know them) at a relatively late period, though there are detractors. Walter Scott stated that the romance was "the undoubted original" and the ballad version being corrupted "with changes by oral tradition". . This commentary comes under Scott's "Appendix to the Thomas the Rhymer", where he prints an excerpt from the romance (version with an Incipit, i.e., the Cotton MS, as spelled out by Murray in his catalog of "Printed Editions," ) Murray flatly dismissed this oral transmission notion, characterizing the ballad as modernization by a contemporary versifier.Scott goes on to say it was "as if the older tale had been regularly and systematically modernized by a poet of the present day." , and Murray, seizing on this statement, comments that "the 'as if' in the last sentence might be safely left out, and that the 'traditional ballad' never grew 'by oral tradition' out of the older, is clear.." In fact Scott too privately held his "suspicion of modern manufacture."Letter of Robert Anderson who compiled The Works of the British Poets to Bishop Percy, , taken from Nicholl's Illustrations of Literature, p.89 C.E. Nelson argued for a common archetype (from which all the ballads derive), composed around the year 1700 by "a literate individual of antiquarian bent" living in Berwickshire. Nelson starts off with a working assumption that the archetype ballad, "a not too remote an ancestor of Mrs. Greenwoodversion" was "purposefully reduced from the romance" The linchpin that makes his argument plausible was his reminder that the romance was in fact "printed as late as the seventeenth century" (a printing of 1652 existed, republished ), a point missed by a number of commentators, and failed to be accounted in Murray's "Published Texts" section. Localizing the archetype to Berwickshire is natural, since the Greenwood group of ballads that closely abide by the romance belong to this area, and it is the "home area" of the traditional hero, Thomas of Erceldoune. After his examination, he pronounced his assumptions justified by evidence, leading him to conclude the "eighteenth-century origin and the subsequent tradition of ballad of 'Thomas Rhymer'", which covered not just the Greenwood group but extendable to the Brown group also. Additional books that had anything to say about the interrelationship, that pronounce that romance is the basis of the ballad include Katharine Mary Briggs's folk-tale dictionary of 1971, and others. On the opposite side of the camp, Child did express the opinion that the ballad "must be of considerable age" though the earliest available to him was datable only to ca. 1700–1750. E. B. Lyle, a researcher prolific on papers on Thomas, surveys post-1950s scholarship on Thomas. hypothesizes the existence of an earlier form of the ballad, which predated the romance and was the source of it. One proponent of the view is Helen Cooper who says that the "has one of the strongest claims to medieval origins," , p.467 n17: "paper suggests that an early form of the ballad may underlie the romance. " and another is Richard Firth Green who states "continuous oral transmission is the only credible explanation". However Cooper and Green drawn these conclusion under the mistaken assumption that the "romance.. had not yet been printed at the time of Mrs Brown's performance". "only some kind of hypothetical conspiracy between Brown and Scott could explain how she might have been able to fabricate her ballad from the hitherto unprinted romance. Footnotes Recognition Influences It has been suggested that John Keats wrote the poem La Belle Dame sans Merci having borrowed the motif and structure from the legend of Thomas the Rhymer. Washington Irving, while visiting Scott, was told the legend of Thomas the Rhymer, and it became one of the sources for Irving's short story Rip van Winkle. Retellings There have been numerous prose retelling of the ballad or legend. John Tillotson's version (1863) with "magic harp he had won in Elfland" and Elizabeth W. Greierson's version (1906) with "harp that was fashioned in Fairyland" are couple of examples that incorporate the theme from Scott's Part Three of Thomas vanishing back to Elfland after the sighting of a hart and hind in town. Project Gutenberg (Children's Tales from Scottish Ballads 1906) Barbara Ker Wilson's retold tale of "Thomas the Rhymer" is a patchwork of all the traditions accrued around Thomas, including ballad and prophecies both written and popularly held. ; Repr. Additional, non-exhaustive list of retellings as follows: * Donald Alexander Macleod (ed.), Arthur George Walker (illus.) "Story of Thomas the Rhymer" (ca. 1880s). (original printing: New York : F.A. Stokes Company, 188-?) * Gibbings & Co., publishers (1889). Reprinted: . Also cf. the first tale "Canobie Dick and Thomas of Ercildoun" * Mary MacGregor (ed.), Katharine Cameron (illus.) (1908). * Donald Alexander Mackenzie (ed.), John Duncan (illus.), "Story of Thomas the Rhymer" (1917). * George Douglas (ed.), James Torrance (illus.), in Scottish Fairy Tales (sans date, ca. 1920). * Judy Paterson (ed.), Sally J. Collins (illus.) (1998). In literature *Rudyard Kipling's poem, The Last Rhyme of True Thomas (1894), features Thomas Learmounth and a king who's going to make Thomas his knight. *John Geddie, Thomas the Rymour and his Rhymes. a portrait of the author, Edinburgh: Printed for the Rymour Club and issued from John Knox's House, 1920. *William Croft Dickinson wrote a children's book titled "The Eildon Tree" (1944) about two modern children meeting Thomas the Rhymer and travelling back in time to a critical point in Scottish history. * Thomas is a major character in Alexander Reid's play The Lass wi the Muckle Mou (1950). *Nigel Tranter, Scottish writer, wrote novel True Thomas (1981). *Ellen Kushner's novel Thomas the Rhymer (1990). *Bruce Glassco's short story "True Thomas", in Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling's fairy tale anthology Black Swan, White Raven (1997), posits Thomas' prophetic powers were a gift of alien abduction – the Queen of Faerie from the ballad was the Queen of an extraterrestrial Hive sworn to protect Languages. *"Erceldoune", a novella by Holy Blood, Holy Grail co-author Richard Leigh, features a folk-singer named Thomas "Rafe" Erlston, in: [http://books.google.cm/books?id=pE1dnq70TkQC&pg=PA1 Erceldoune & Other Stories] (2006) ISBN 978-1-4116-9943-4 *In Sergey Lukyanenko's novel The Last Watch, Thomas is described as an actual person, a prominent Other, which has survived until today and currently occupies the post of the Head of the Scottish Night Watch. *Thomas appears in John Leylands ballad "Lord Soulis", where after failing to bind William II de Soules with magical ropes of sand, he determines that the sorcerer must be wrapped in lead and boiled. In music The German version of Tom der Reimer by Theodor Fontane was set as a song for male voice and piano by Carl Loewe, his op. 135. Recent versions of the "Thomas the Rhymer" ballad include renditions by the electric folk act Steeleye Span which recorded two different versions for their 1974 album Now We Are Six and another for Present--The Very Best of Steeleye Span, released in 2002. Singer Ewan MacColl was also recorded his version of the ballad. An outstanding earlier recording, in German, is by Heinrich Schlusnus, on Polydor 67212, of 1938 (78 rpm). The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams left an opera by the title of Thomas the Rhymer incomplete at the time of his death in 1958. The libretto was a collaboration between the composer and his second wife, Ursula Vaughan Williams, and it was based upon the ballads of Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin.Ursula Vaughan Williams, R.V.W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 393. The British country/acid house band Alabama 3 drew upon the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer in a 2003 recording entitled '' Yellow Rose''. Alabama 3's lyrics give the ballad a new setting in the American frontier of the 19th Century, where an enchanting woman lures the narrator to a night of wild debauchery, then robs and finally murders him. Yellow Rose was released as Track 11 of Alabama 3's 2003 album Power in the Blood (One Little Indian / Geffen). Kray Van Kirk's creative commons licenced song The Queen of Elfland is based on the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer In fine arts * Thomas the Rhymer and the Queen of Faerie (1851), by Joseph Noel Paton * Thomas the Rhymer and the Queen of Faerie print by John Le Conte, after Sir Joseph Noel Paton, published W & A K Johnston (1852). * Beverly Nichols's A Book of Old Ballads (1934) reprints the Greenwood version of the ballad, with a print of "Thomas the Rhymer" by H. M. Brock * Beneath the Eildon Tree is a painting by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law depicting Thomas the Rhymer and the Faery Queen. See also *List of British poets References * **— "A seventeenth-century text of Thomas of Erceldoune" (1954), Medium Ævum 23 * ** http://www.presscom.co.uk/chambers/chambers_popular.html ** * * * : "True Thomas and Queen of Elfland" * * * : "Thomas the Rhymer in Three Parts" * Notes External links ;Poems *"Thomas Rymer and the Queen of Elfland" *"Thomas Rymer and the Queen of Elfland" annotated ;About * 13-ISBN 9780786428274 * * } * * * *'' ERceldoune, Thomas of Category:13th-century births Category:13th-century deaths Category:Child Ballads Category:Scottish folklore Category:Scots Makars Category:Northumbrian folklore Category:Border ballads Category:Scottish ballads Category:Roud Folk Song Index songs Category:Prophets